And why are DiLorenzo's writings anymore propagandistic than yours? Just about everything you've written could have been penned by the same State-sponsored "historians" who write the government schools' "history" books.

Originally Posted by heavenlyboy34

Now you think Tom's books are biographies? Do you even know what that word means? I get the feeling that either you don't or you're deliberately misusing it. Tom's books are history, not biography.

No, that is not correct at all. My challenge to you is: Can you read Lincoln's speech in the OP of this thread and understand it? I believe that is the speech that DiLorenzo claimed that Lincoln was extreme and even bizarre, "Lincoln's speech was quite extreme and even bizarre in some respects. He quite hysterically claimed, for instance, that under a gold and silver standard "All [will] suffer more or less, and very many will lose everything that renders life desirable." Can you quantify what DiLorenzo meant by that?

How is anyone supposed to interpret a disembodied, out of context quote? Try this-get out your bible and read Haggai 2:3 and tell me exactly what it means.

HB34 let me suggest this to you. Believe what ever you want to believe. On Lincoln, ignore Willam H. Herndon, Carl Schurz, Henry Ketcham, Nicolay and Hay, Abraham Lincoln's own words, and just believe whatever you want to believe. You certainly have the right to be stupid in this world.

Now you think Tom's books are biographies? Do you even know what that word means?

"a usually written history of a person's life" DiLorenzo called his book, "The Real Lincoln." Does that sound like a book about who the real Abraham Lincoln was? Do you have any idea what that word means?

Originally Posted by heavenlyboy34

I get the feeling that either you don't or you're deliberately misusing it. Tom's books are history, not biography.

Not history. DiLorenzo revises history and taints it with just enough truth to get gullible people to believe it. He got you hook, line, and sinker because you are too lazy to do your own homework.

In "The Real Lincoln" DiLorenzo makes his readers believe that Lincoln was against auditing the bank. People like you simply believe whatever is written down and walk away believing Lincoln wanted an unaudited bank like the "Federal Reserve System." People like me search for the truth. Here is what I found.

People like you believe whatever DiLorenzo writes because he is a member of the Mises Institute. People like me question everything and seek out the facts.

Originally Posted by itshappening

Regarding Sumter and the 'first shots of the civil war', Dilorenzo says this:

Daily Bell: Why didn't the South just stand down? There's a theory that if the South had simply declared its independence and walked away that there would not have been much the North could do. Why did the South willingly embark on a shooing war?

Thomas DiLorenzo: The South did not "embark on a shooting war'" Lincoln did. The states were sovereign, and therefore had a right to secede, as they do today. Article 7 of the Constitution proves this by stating that the Constitution is to be ratified by political conventions of the states. No human being was harmed, let alone killed during the bombing of Fort Sumter. South Carolinians considered the fort to be their property, paid for with their tax dollars, and erected for their protection. Lincoln responded to Fort Sumter with a full-scale invasion of all the Southern states that ended up killing some 350,000 Southerners. For this he is hailed as "a great statesman" by our court historians.

Daily Bell: Still, there are those who believe it was a mistake for the South to have initiated hostilities at all.

Thomas DiLorenzo: Lincoln had sent warships to Charleston Harbor, and successfully duped the South Carolinians into foolishly firing on the fort. Afterwards, Lincoln wrote a letter of thanks and congratulation to his naval commander Gustavus Fox for assisting him in getting the war started in this way. It was the biggest political miscalculation in American history: Lincoln (and many other Northerners) believed the war would be relatively bloodless and last only a few weeks or months.

DiLorenzo is flat out lying. The South fired the first shots, the second shots, and the third shot which killed the first Union soldier, Elmer Ellsworth, who was a close friend of the Lincoln family. The Confederate Secretary of War even admits to starting the war.

"On April 12, 1861 only hours after Confederate guns opened fire on Fort Sumter in the Charleston harbor, Confederate Secretary of War Leroy P. Walker appeared before a jubilant crowd in Montgomery, Alabama. "No man can tell when the war this day commenced will end," Walker thundered from the balcony of the Exchange Hotel, at the heart of the Confederate capital, "but I will prophesy that the flag which now floats the breeze here will float over the dome of the old capital at Washington before the first of May."

DiLorenzo describes the letter to Captain Fox: "Lincoln wrote a letter of thanks and congratulation to his naval commander Gustavus Fox for assisting him in getting the war started in this way." Why did DiLorenzo lie and say that Lincoln sent warships when the letter he referenced specifically says "you were deprived of a war-vessel, with her men"? Because DiLorenzo knows that people like you are too lazy to do your own homework. Then when people like me come along and point to the truth, you just want to fight with them.

I sincerely regret that the failure of the late attempt to provision Fort Sumter should be the source of any annoyance to you. The practicability of your plan was not, in fact, brought to a test. By reason of a gale, well known in advance to be possible, and not improbable, the tugs, an essential part of the plan, never reached the ground ; while, by an accident, for which you were in nowise responsible, and possibly I, to some extent, was, you were deprived of a war-vessel, with her men, which you deemed of great importance to the enterprise.

I most cheerfully and truthfully declare that the failure of the undertaking has not lowered you a particle, while the qualities you developed in the effort have greatly heightened you in my estimation. For a daring and dangerous enterprise of a similar character, you would, to-day, be the man of all my acquaintances whom I would select. You and I both anticipated that the cause of the country would be advanced by making the attempt to provision Fort Sumter, even if it should fail; and it is no small consolation now to feel that our anticipation is justified by the result.

Very truly your friend, A. LINCOLN.

DiLorenzo flat out lies over and over. You would not know that though, HB34, because you don't do your own homework.

So first you claim hes a liar because he says 28 years in politics but you only see 12 years in political office. two very different things. then you keep referring to your op where you post a speech that you "believe" dilorenzo is referring to yet i cant seem to find the quote dilorenzo uses at all in your op. your last quote says "you were deprived of a war-vessel, with her men..." dilorenzo says "Lincoln had sent warships to Charleston Harbor, and successfully duped the South Carolinians into foolishly firing on the fort." didnt lincoln send unarmed warships an trick them or not? lincolns letter doesnt refute that at all, it seems to me it confirms it.

So first you claim hes a liar because he says 28 years in politics but you only see 12 years in political office. two very different things.

Lincoln only held political office for 12 years prior to being president. Do you consider yourself a politician because you are on a political forum? Do you consider people who vote 'Politicians'? What is a politician in your mind? DiLorenzo wants us to believe that Lincoln was a master politician, but Stephen Douglas was the master politician of that day. Douglas is the Illinois politician with a 28 year career. He got in political office and stayed. Lincoln didn't.

Originally Posted by McChronagle

then you keep referring to your op where you post a speech that you "believe" dilorenzo is referring to yet i cant seem to find the quote dilorenzo uses at all in your op.

I don't know for sure that Lincoln's speech in the OP is the speech that DiLorenzo was referring to when he was describing Lincoln's position on national banks. It seems so to me. It is the only speech I could find on Lincoln and national banks and it is from the same year DiLorenzo described.

Originally Posted by McChronagle

your last quote says "you were deprived of a war-vessel, with her men..." dilorenzo says "Lincoln had sent warships to Charleston Harbor, and successfully duped the South Carolinians into foolishly firing on the fort." didnt lincoln send unarmed warships an trick them or not? lincolns letter doesnt refute that at all, it seems to me it confirms it.

No, Lincoln attempted to send food and supplies to 86 Union men who were being held hostage in Fort Sumter who were running out of food because they had not been resupplied since December 1860. Lincoln did not send warships and he did not say he did. He notified South Carolina that he intended to send provisions to his Union men:

Charleston, April 8.
To L. P. Walker, Secretary of War.
An authorized messenger from President Lincoln just informed Governor Pickens and myself that provisions will be sent to Fort Sumpter[sic], peaceably, or otherwise by force.
[Signed.] G. T. BEAUREGARD.

So first you claim hes a liar because he says 28 years in politics but you only see 12 years in political office. two very different things. then you keep referring to your op where you post a speech that you "believe" dilorenzo is referring to yet i cant seem to find the quote dilorenzo uses at all in your op. your last quote says "you were deprived of a war-vessel, with her men..." dilorenzo says "Lincoln had sent warships to Charleston Harbor, and successfully duped the South Carolinians into foolishly firing on the fort." didnt lincoln send unarmed warships an trick them or not? lincolns letter doesnt refute that at all, it seems to me it confirms it.

DiLorenzo calls it "The Real Lincoln" but his attempt at rewriting history should be called "The New Lincoln." And if you believe what he writes is gospel, then you haven't done your American History or Economics homework. The South seceded to defend the institution of negro slavery, and "The American System" of economics looks nothing like "The Federal Reserve System" of elastic money and debasement of currency.

[A]n increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding [i.e., northern] states to the institution of slavery has led to a disregard of their obligations. . . . [T]hey have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery. . . . They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes [through the Underground Railroad].

Mississippi,

Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery – the greatest material interest of the world. . . . [A] blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin.

Alabama,

. . . the election of Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin to the offices of President and Vice-President of the United States of America by a sectional party [the Republicans], avowedly hostile to the domestic institutions [slavery] and to the peace and security of the people of the State of Alabama . .

Georgia,

A brief history of the rise, progress, and policy of anti-slavery and the political organization into whose hands the administration of the federal government has been committed [i.e., the Republican Party] will fully justify the pronounced verdict of the people of Georgia [in favor of secession]. The party of Lincoln, called the Republican Party under its present name and organization, is of recent origin. It is admitted to be an anti-slavery party. . . . The prohibition of slavery in the territories, hostility to it everywhere, the equality of the black and white races, disregard of all constitutional guarantees in its favor, were boldly proclaimed by its [Republican] leaders and applauded by its followers. . . . [T]he abolitionists and their allies in the northern states have been engaged in constant efforts to subvert our institutions [i.e., slavery].

Louisiana,

Louisiana looks to the formation of a Southern Confederacy to preserve the blessings of African slavery. . . . Louisiana and Texas have the same language, laws, and institutions. . . . and they are both so deeply interested in African slavery that it may be said to be absolutely necessary to their existence and is the keystone to the arch of their prosperity. . . . The people of Louisiana would consider it a most fatal blow to African slavery if Texas either did not secede or, having seceded, should not join her destinies to theirs in a Southern Confederacy.

Texas,

[Texas] was received as a commonwealth, holding, maintaining, and protecting the institution known as Negro slavery – the servitude of the African to the white race within [Texas] – a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race and which her people intended should exist in all future time.

Virginia,

On April 17, 1861, Virginia became the eighth state to secede. It, too, acknowledged that the “oppression of the southern slave-holding states” (among which it numbered itself) had motivated its decision.

Arkansas,

No concessions would now satisfy (and none ought now to satisfy) the South but such as would amount to a surrender of the distinctive principles by which the Republican Party coheres [exists], because none other or less would give the South peace and security. That Party would have to agree that in the view of the Constitution, slaves are property – that slavery might exist and should be legalized and protected in territory hereafter to be acquired to the southwest [e.g., New Mexico, Arizona, etc.], and that Negroes and mulattoes cannot be citizens of the United States nor vote at general elections in the states. . . . For that Party to make these concessions would simply be to commit suicide and therefore it is idle to expect from the North – so long as it [the Republican Party] rules there – a single concession of any value.

North Carolina and Tennessee,

North Carolina and Tennessee became the tenth and eleventh states to secede, thus finishing the formation of the new nation that titled itself the Slave-Holding Confederate States of America. Southern secession documents indisputably affirm that the South’s desire to preserve slavery was the driving force in its secession and thus a primary cause of the Civil War.

While the national bank Lincoln wanted is not compatible with the laissez faire system described by Ludwig von Mises, it is also not anything like the elastic money of the international banker's "Federal Reserve System" of counterfeit money and debased currency. Lincoln presents a good strong argument for the national bank.

That's what I learned from watching the Money Masters.

All wars are started by bankers
Gold standard bad, greenbacks good
All assassinated presidents were enemies of bankers, and the biggest ones end up on faces of money
Fort Knox raid was predicted by James Bond

DiLorenzo calls it "The Real Lincoln" but his attempt at rewriting history should be called "The New Lincoln." And if you believe what he writes is gospel, then you haven't done your American History or Economics homework. The South seceded to defend the institution of negro slavery, and "The American System" of economics looks nothing like "The Federal Reserve System" of elastic money and debasement of currency.

Public school kids are taught that civil war is about slavery & racism, North won because they're good guys, South lost because they're the bad guys. If the North lost, blacks would still be slaves today.

It's revisionists and conspiracy theorists that believe Civil War was about other things, States rights, money, bankers, or slavery was already going away, or that the south actually wanted less slaves, or that Lincoln was more racist, or that slavery was actually better for black people......more complicated than being about slavery.

Public school kids are taught that civil war is about slavery & racism, North won because they're good guys, South lost because they're the bad guys. If the North lost, blacks would still be slaves today.

It's revisionists and conspiracy theorists that believe Civil War was about other things, States rights, money, bankers, or slavery was already going away, or that the south actually wanted less slaves, or that Lincoln was more racist, or that slavery was actually better for black people......more complicated than being about slavery.

It has been several decades since I was in public school so I don't know what they teach. But if you read the Confederate Constitution it specifically states that Almighty God gives the white man the right to own negro slaves.

Preamble

We, the people of the Confederate States, each State acting in its sovereign and independent character, in order to form a permanent federal government, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity invoking the favor and guidance of Almighty God do ordain and establish this Constitution for the Confederate States of America.

Article I

Section I. All legislative powers herein delegated shall be vested in a Congress of the Confederate States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.

Sec. 2. (I) The House of Representatives shall be composed of members chosen every second year by the people of the several States; and the electors in each State shall be citizens of the Confederate States, and have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State Legislature; but no person of foreign birth, not a citizen of the Confederate States, shall be allowed to vote for any officer, civil or political, State or Federal.

(2) No person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained the age of twenty-five years, and be a citizen of the Confederate States, and who shall not when elected, be an inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen.

(3) Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several States, which may be included within this Confederacy, according to their respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three-fifths of all slaves. ,The actual enumeration shall be made within three years after the first meeting of the Congress of the Confederate States, and within every subsequent term of ten years, in such manner as they shall by law direct. The number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every fifty thousand, but each State shall have at least one Representative; and until such enumeration shall be made, the State of South Carolina shall be entitled to choose six; the State of Georgia ten; the State of Alabama nine; the State of Florida two; the State of Mississippi seven; the State of Louisiana six; and the State of Texas six.

(4) When vacancies happen in the representation from any State the executive authority thereof shall issue writs of election to fill such vacancies.

(5) The House of Representatives shall choose their Speaker and other officers; and shall have the sole power of impeachment; except that any judicial or other Federal officer, resident and acting solely within the limits of any State, may be impeached by a vote of two-thirds of both branches of the Legislature thereof.

Sec. 3. (I) The Senate of the Confederate States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, chosen for six years by the Legislature thereof, at the regular session next immediately preceding the commencement of the term of service; and each Senator shall have one vote.

(2) Immediately after they shall be assembled, in consequence of the first election, they shall be divided as equally as may be into three classes. The seats of the Senators of the first class shall be vacated at the expiration of the second year; of the second class at the expiration of the fourth year; and of the third class at the expiration of the sixth year; so that one-third may be chosen every second year; and if vacancies happen by resignation, or other wise, during the recess of the Legislature of any State, the Executive thereof may make temporary appointments until the next meeting of the Legislature, which shall then fill such vacancies.

(3) No person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained the age of thirty years, and be a citizen of the Confederate States; and who shall not, then elected, be an inhabitant of the State for which he shall be chosen.

(4) The Vice President of the Confederate States shall be president of the Senate, but shall have no vote unless they be equally divided.

(5) The Senate shall choose their other officers; and also a president pro tempore in the absence of the Vice President, or when he shall exercise the office of President of the Confederate states.

(6) The Senate shall have the sole power to try all impeachments. When sitting for that purpose, they shall be on oath or affirmation. When the President of the Confederate States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside; and no person shall be convicted without the concurrence of two-thirds of the members present.

(7) Judgment in cases of impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from office, and disqualification to hold any office of honor, trust, or profit under the Confederate States; but the party convicted shall, nevertheless, be liable and subject to indictment, trial, judgment, and punishment according to law.

Sec. 4. (I) The times, places, and manner of holding elections for Senators and Representatives shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof, subject to the provisions of this Constitution; but the Congress may, at any time, by law, make or alter such regulations, except as to the times and places of choosing Senators.

(2) The Congress shall assemble at least once in every year; and such meeting shall be on the first Monday in December, unless they shall, by law, appoint a different day.

Sec. 5. (I) Each House shall be the judge of the elections, returns, and qualifications of its own members, and a majority of each shall constitute a quorum to do business; but a smaller number may adjourn from day to day, and may be authorized to compel the attendance of absent members, in such manner and under such penalties as each House may provide.

(2) Each House may determine the rules of its proceedings, punish its members for disorderly behavior, and, with the concurrence of two-thirds of the whole number, expel a member.

(3) Each House shall keep a journal of its proceedings, and from time to time publish the same, excepting such parts as may in their judgment require secrecy; and the yeas and nays of the members of either House, on any question, shall, at the desire of one-fifth of those present, be entered on the journal.

(4) Neither House, during the session of Congress, shall, without the consent of the other, adjourn for more than three days, nor to any other place than that in which the two Houses shall be sitting.

Sec. 6. (I) The Senators and Representatives shall receive a compensation for their services, to be ascertained by law, and paid out of the Treasury of the Confederate States. They shall, in all cases, except treason, felony, and breach of the peace, be privileged from arrest during their attendance at the session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any speech or debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other place. 'o Senator or Representative shall, during the time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil office under the authority of the Confederate States, which shall have been created, or the emoluments whereof shall have been increased during such time; and no person holding any office under the Confederate States shall be a member of either House during his continuance in office. But Congress may, by law, grant to the principal officer in each of the Executive Departments a seat upon the floor of either House, with the privilege of discussing any measures appertaining to his department.

Sec. 7. (I) All bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with amendments, as on other bills.

(2) Every bill which shall have passed both Houses, shall, before it becomes a law, be presented to the President of the Confederate States; if he approve, he shall sign it; but if not, he shall return it, with his objections, to that House in which it shall have originated, who shall enter the objections at large on their journal, and proceed to reconsider it. If, after such reconsideration, two-thirds of that House shall agree to pass the bill, it shall be sent, together with the objections, to the other House, by which it shall likewise be reconsidered, and if approved by two-thirds of that House, it shall become a law. But in all such cases, the votes of both Houses shall be determined by yeas and nays, and the names of the persons voting for and against the bill shall be entered on the journal of each House respective}y. If any bill shall not be returned by the President within ten days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the same shall be a law, in like manner as if he had signed it, unless the Congress, by their adjournment, prevent its return; in which case it shall not be a law. The President may approve any appropriation and disapprove any other appropriation in the same bill. In such case he shall, in signing the bill, designate the appropriations disapproved; and shall return a copy of such appropriations, with his objections, to the House in which the bill shall have originated; and the same proceedings shall then be had as in case of other bills disapproved by the President.

(3) Every order, resolution, or vote, to which the concurrence of both Houses may be necessary (except on a question of adjournment) shall be presented to the President of the Confederate States; and before the same shall take effect, shall be approved by him; or, being disapproved by him, shall be repassed by two-thirds of both Houses, according to the rules and limitations prescribed in case of a bill.

Sec. 8. The Congress shall have power-

(I) To lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises for revenue, necessary to pay the debts, provide for the common defense, and carry on the Government of the Confederate States; but no bounties shall be granted from the Treasury; nor shall any duties or taxes on importations from foreign nations be laid to promote or foster any branch of industry; and all duties, imposts, and excises shall be uniform throughout the Confederate States.

(2) To borrow money on the credit of the Confederate States.

(3) To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes; but neither this, nor any other clause contained in the Constitution, shall ever be construed to delegate the power to Congress to appropriate money for any internal improvement intended to facilitate commerce; except for the purpose of furnishing lights, beacons, and buoys, and other aids to navigation upon the coasts, and the improvement of harbors and the removing of obstructions in river navigation; in all which cases such duties shall be laid on the navigation facilitated thereby as may be necessary to pay the costs and expenses thereof.

(4) To establish uniform laws of naturalization, and uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies, throughout the Confederate States; but no law of Congress shall discharge any debt contracted before the passage of the same.

(5) To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures.

(6) To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the Confederate States.

(7) To establish post offices and post routes; but the expenses of the Post Office Department, after the Ist day of March in the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and sixty-three, shall be paid out of its own revenues.

(8) To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.

(9) To constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court.

(10) To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offenses against the law of nations.

(11) To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water.

(12) To raise and support armies; but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years.

(13) To provide and maintain a navy.

(14) To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces.

(15) To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the Confederate States, suppress insurrections, and repel invasions.

(16) To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the Confederate States; reserving to the States, respectively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress.

(17) To exercise exclusive legislation, in all cases whatsoever, over such district (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of one or more States and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the Government of the Confederate States; and to exercise like authority over all places purchased by the consent of the Legislature of the State in which the same shall be, for the . erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings; and

(18) To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the Confederate States, or in any department or officer thereof.

Sec. 9. (I) The importation of negroes of the African race from any foreign country other than the slaveholding States or Territories of the United States of America, is hereby forbidden; and Congress is required to pass such laws as shall effectually prevent the same.

(2) Congress shall also have power to prohibit the introduction of slaves from any State not a member of, or Territory not belonging to, this Confederacy.

(3) The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it.

(4) No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed.

(5) No capitation or other direct tax shall be laid, unless in proportion to the census or enumeration hereinbefore directed to be taken.

(6) No tax or duty shall be laid on articles exported from any State, except by a vote of two-thirds of both Houses.

(7) No preference shall be given by any regulation of commerce or revenue to the ports of one State over those of another.

(8) No money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in consequence of appropriations made by law; and a regular statement and account of the receipts and expenditures of all public money shall be published from time to time.

(9) Congress shall appropriate no money from the Treasury except by a vote of two-thirds of both Houses, taken by yeas and nays, unless it be asked and estimated for by some one of the heads of departments and submitted to Congress by the President; or for the purpose of paying its own expenses and contingencies; or for the payment of claims against the Confederate States, the justice of which shall have been judicially declared by a tribunal for the investigation of claims against the Government, which it is hereby made the duty of Congress to establish.

(10) All bills appropriating money shall specify in Federal currency the exact amount of each appropriation and the purposes for which it is made; and Congress shall grant no extra compensation to any public contractor, officer, agent, or servant, after such contract shall have been made or such service rendered.

(11) No title of nobility shall be granted by the Confederate States; and no person holding any office of profit or trust under them shall, without the consent of the Congress, accept of any present, emolument, office, or title of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign state.

(12) Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

(13) A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

(14) No soldier shall, in time of peace, be quartered in any house without the consent of the owner; nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

(15) The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated; and no warrants shall issue but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized.

(16) No person shall be held to answer for a capital or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor be compelled, in any criminal case, to be a witness against himself; nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

(17) In all criminal prosecutions the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor; and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.

(18) In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved; and no fact so tried by a jury shall be otherwise reexamined in any court of the Confederacy, than according to the rules of common law.

(20) Every law, or resolution having the force of law, shall relate to but one subject, and that shall be expressed in the title.

Sec. 10. (I) No State shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or confederation; grant letters of marque and reprisal; coin money; make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts; pass any bill of attainder, or ex post facto law, or law impairing the obligation of contracts; or grant any title of nobility.

(2) No State shall, without the consent of the Congress, lay any imposts or duties on imports or exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for executing its inspection laws; and the net produce of all duties and imposts, laid by any State on imports, or exports, shall be for the use of the Treasury of the Confederate States; and all such laws shall be subject to the revision and control of Congress.

(3) No State shall, without the consent of Congress, lay any duty on tonnage, except on seagoing vessels, for the improvement of its rivers and harbors navigated by the said vessels; but such duties shall not conflict with any treaties of the Confederate States with foreign nations; and any surplus revenue thus derived shall, after making such improvement, be paid into the common treasury. Nor shall any State keep troops or ships of war in time of peace, enter into any agreement or compact with another State, or with a foreign power, or engage in war, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent danger as will not admit of delay. But when any river divides or flows through two or more States they may enter into compacts with each other to improve the navigation thereof.

ARTICLE II

Section I. (I) The executive power shall be vested in a President of the Confederate States of America. He and the Vice President shall hold their offices for the term of six years; but the President shall not be reeligible. The President and Vice President shall be elected as follows:

(2) Each State shall appoint, in such manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a number of electors equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress; but no Senator or Representative or person holding an office of trust or profit under the Confederate States shall be appointed an elector.

(3) The electors shall meet in their respective States and vote by ballot for President and Vice President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same State with themselves; they shall name in their ballots the person voted for as President, and in distinct ballots the person voted for as Vice President, and they shall make distinct lists of all persons voted for as President, and of all persons voted for as Vice President, and of the number of votes for each, which lists they shall sign and certify, and transmit, sealed, to the seat of the Government of. the Confederate States, directed to the President of the Senate; the President of the Senate shall,in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates, and the votes shall then be counted; the person having the greatest number of votes for President shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of electors appointed; and if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers, not exceeding three, on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President. But in choosing the President the votes shall be taken by States, the representation from each State having one vote; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two-thirds of the States, and a majority of all the States shall be necessary to a choice. And if the House of Representatives shall not choose a President, whenever the right of choice shall devolve upon them, before the 4th day of March next following, then the Vice President shall act as President, as in case of the death, or other constitutional disability of the President.

(4) The person having the greatest number of votes as Vice President shall be the Vice President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of electors appointed; and if no person have a majority, then, from the two highest numbers on the list, the Senate shall choose the Vice President; a quorum for the purpose shall consist of two-thirds of the whole number of Senators, and a majority of the whole number shall be necessary to a choice.

(5) But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice President of the Confederate States.

(6) The Congress may determine the time of choosing the electors, and the day on which they shall give their votes; which day shall be the same throughout the Confederate States.

(7) No person except a natural-born citizen of the Confederate; States, or a citizen thereof at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, or a citizen thereof born in the United States prior to the 20th of December, 1860, shall be eligible to the office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that office who shall not have attained the age of thirty-five years, and been fourteen years a resident within the limits of the Confederate States, as they may exist at the time of his election.

(8) In case of the removal of the President from office, or of his death, resignation, or inability to discharge the powers and duties of said office, the same shall devolve on the Vice President; and the Congress may, by law, provide for the case of removal, death, resignation, or inability, both of the President and Vice President, declaring what officer shall then act as President; and such officer shall act accordingly until the disability be removed or a President shall be elected.

(9) The President shall, at stated times, receive for his services a compensation, which shall neither be increased nor diminished during the period for which he shall have been elected; and he shall not receive within that period any other emolument from the Confederate States, or any of them.

(10) Before he enters on the execution of his office he shall take the following oath or affirmation:

Sec. 2. (I) The President shall be Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy of the Confederate States, and of the militia of the several States, when called into the actual service of the Confederate States; he may require the opinion, in writing, of the principal officer in each of the Executive Departments, upon any subject relating to the duties of their respective offices; and he shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the Confederate States, except in cases of impeachment.

(2) He shall have power, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to make treaties; provided two-thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate shall appoint, ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, judges of the Supreme Court, and all other officers of the Confederate States whose appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by law; but the Congress may, by law, vest the appointment of such inferior officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the courts of law, or in the heads of departments.

(3) The principal officer in each of the Executive Departments, and all persons connected with the diplomatic service, may be removed from office at the pleasure of the President. All other civil officers of the Executive Departments may be removed at any time by the President, or other appointing power, when their services are unnecessary, or for dishonesty, incapacity. inefficiency, misconduct, or neglect of duty; and when so removed, the removal shall be reported to the Senate, together with the reasons therefor.

(4) The President shall have power to fill all vacancies that may happen during the recess of the Senate, by granting commissions which shall expire at the end of their next session; but no person rejected by the Senate shall be reappointed to the same office during their ensuing recess.

Sec. 3. (I) The President shall, from time to time, give to the Congress information of the state of the Confederacy, and recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them; and in case of disagreement between them, with respect to the time of adjournment, he may adjourn them to such time as he shall think proper; he shall receive ambassadors and other public ministers; he shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed, and shall commission all the officers of the Confederate States.

Sec. 4. (I) The President, Vice President, and all civil officers of the Confederate States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for and conviction of treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.

ARTICLE III

Section I. (I) The judicial power of the Confederate States shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts as the Congress may, from time to time, ordain and establish. The judges, both of the Supreme and inferior courts, shall hold their offices during good behavior, and shall, at stated times, receive for their services a compensation which shall not be diminished during their continuance in office.

Sec. 2. (I) The judicial power shall extend to all cases arising under this Constitution, the laws of the Confederate States, and treaties made, or which shall be made, under their authority; to all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls; to all cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction; to controversies to which the Confederate States shall be a party; to controversies between two or more States; between a State and citizens of another State, where the State is plaintiff; between citizens claiming lands under grants of different States; and between a State or the citizens thereof, and foreign states, citizens, or subjects; but no State shall be sued by a citizen or subject of any foreign state.

(2) In all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, and those in which a State shall be a party, the Supreme Court shall have original jurisdiction. In all the other cases before mentioned, the Supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdiction both as to law and fact, with such exceptions and under such regulations as the Congress shall make.

(3) The trial of all crimes, except in cases of impeachment, shall be by jury, and such trial shall be held in the State where the said crimes shall have been committed; but when not committed within any State, the trial shall be at such place or places as the Congress may by law have directed.

Sec. 3. (I) Treason against the Confederate States shall consist only in levying war against.them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court.

(2) The Congress shall have power to declare the punishment of treason; but no attainder of treason shall work corruption of blood, or forfeiture, except during the life of the person attainted.

ARTICLE IV

Section I. (I) Full faith and credit shall be given in each State to the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other State; and the Congress may, by general laws, prescribe the manner in which such acts, records, and proceedings shall be proved, and the effect thereof.

Sec. 2. (I) The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States; and shall have the right of transit and sojourn in any State of this Confederacy, with their slaves and other property; and the right of property in said slaves shall not be thereby impaired.

(2) A person charged in any State with treason, felony, or other crime against the laws of such State, who shall flee from justice, and be found in another State, shall, on demand of the executive authority of the State from which he fled, be delivered up, to be removed to the State having jurisdiction of the crime.

(3) No slave or other person held to service or labor in any State or Territory of the Confederate States, under the laws thereof, escaping or lawfully carried into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor; but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such slave belongs,. or to whom such service or labor may be due.

Sec. 3. (I) Other States may be admitted into this Confederacy by a vote of two-thirds of the whole House of Representatives and two-thirds of the Senate, the Senate voting by States; but no new State shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction of any other State, nor any State be formed by the junction of two or more States, or parts of States, without the consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned, as well as of the Congress.

(2) The Congress shall have power to dispose of and make allneedful rules and regulations concerning the property of the Confederate States, including the lands thereof.

(3) The Confederate States may acquire new territory; and Congress shall have power to legislate and provide governments for the inhabitants of all territory belonging to the Confederate States, lying without the limits of the several Sates; and may permit them, at such times, and in such manner as it may by law provide, to form States to be admitted into the Confederacy. In all such territory the institution of negro slavery, as it now exists in the Confederate States, shall be recognized and protected be Congress and by the Territorial government; and the inhabitants of the several Confederate States and Territories shall have the right to take to such Territory any slaves lawfully held by them in any of the States or Territories of the Confederate States.

(4) The Confederate States shall guarantee to every State that now is, or hereafter may become, a member of this Confederacy, a republican form of government; and shall protect each of them against invasion; and on application of the Legislature or of the Executive when the Legislature is not in session) against domestic violence.

ARTICLE V

Section I. (I) Upon the demand of any three States, legally assembled in their several conventions, the Congress shall summon a convention of all the States, to take into consideration such amendments to the Constitution as the said States shall concur in suggesting at the time when the said demand is made; and should any of the proposed amendments to the Constitution be agreed on by the said convention, voting by States, and the same be ratified by the Legislatures of two- thirds of the several States, or by conventions in two-thirds thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the general convention, they shall thenceforward form a part of this Constitution. But no State shall, without its consent, be deprived of its equal representation in the Senate.

ARTICLE VI

I. The Government established by this Constitution is the successor of the Provisional Government of the Confederate States of America, and all the laws passed by the latter shall continue in force until the same shall be repealed or modified; and all the officers appointed by the same shall remain in office until their successors are appointed and qualified, or the offices abolished.

2. All debts contracted and engagements entered into before the adoption of this Constitution shall be as valid against the Confederate States under this Constitution, as under the Provisional Government.

3. This Constitution, and the laws of the Confederate States made in pursuance thereof, and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the Confederate States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every State shall be bound thereby, anything in the constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.

4. The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the Confederate States and of the several States, shall be bound by oath or affirmation to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the Confederate States.

5. The enumeration, in the Constitution, of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people of the several States.

6. The powers not delegated to the Confederate States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States, respectively, or to the people thereof.

ARTICLE VII

I. The ratification of the conventions of five States shall be sufficient for the establishment of this Constitution between the States so ratifying the same.

2. When five States shall have ratified this Constitution, in the manner before specified, the Congress under the Provisional Constitution shall prescribe the time for holding the election of President and Vice President; and for the meeting of the Electoral College; and for counting the votes, and inaugurating the President. They shall, also, prescribe the time for holding the first election of members of Congress under this Constitution, and the time for assembling the same. Until the assembling of such Congress, the Congress under the Provisional Constitution shall continue to exercise the legislative powers granted them; not extending beyond the time limited by the Constitution of the Provisional Government.

Adopted unanimously by the Congress of the Confederate States of South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, sitting in convention at the capitol, the city of Montgomery, Ala., on the eleventh day of March, in the year eighteen hundred and Sixty-one.

Which is the best system? It's probably safe to say that the public/private monopoly we have now, run by debt dealers, is not the best. Of course a purely public central bank would be just as susceptible to inflating the currency as any system. Competeing currencies, with no legislated monpolies is probably best.

Twitter: B4Liberty@USAB4L"Foreign aid is taking money from the poor people of a rich country, and giving it to the rich people of a poor country." - Ron Paul
"Beware the Military-Industrial-Financial-Corporate-Media-Government Complex." - B4L update of General Dwight D. Eisenhower
"Debt is the drug, Wall St. Banksters are the dealers, and politicians are the addicts." - B4L
"Totally free immigration? I've never taken that position. I believe in national sovereignty." - Ron Paul

The views and opinions expressed here are solely my own, and do not represent this forum or any other entities or persons.

DiLorenzo calls it "The Real Lincoln" but his attempt at rewriting history should be called "The New Lincoln." And if you believe what he writes is gospel, then you haven't done your American History or Economics homework. The South seceded to defend the institution of negro slavery, and "The American System" of economics looks nothing like "The Federal Reserve System" of elastic money and debasement of currency.

Lincoln never fought the civil war for slavery, it was about his tariff's and the desire to collect higher tariffs from southern ports. He actually said if he let them seceed "what will become of my tariff?"

Here's Abe in his own words:

"But what am I to do in the meantime with those men at Montgomery [meaning the Confederate constitutional convention]? Am I to let them go on... [a]nd open Charleston, etc., as ports of entry, with their ten-percent tariff. What, then, would become of my tariff?" ~ Lincoln to Colonel John B. Baldwin, deputized by the Virginian Commissioners to determine whether Lincoln would use force, April 4, 1861

Here's some more pearls of wisdom from Abe Lincoln and some other quotes from the time:

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On Laissez-Faire:

"My politics are short and sweet, like the old woman's dance. I am in favor of a national bank ... in favor of the internal improvements system and a high protective tariff." ~ Lincoln, Campaign Speech, 1832.

"[Free trade is a system whereby] some have labored, and others have, without labor, enjoyed a large portion of the fruits.... To secure to each laborer the whole product of his labor, or as nearly as possible, is a most worthy object of any good government."

"The legitimate object of government is to do for a community of people whatever they need to have done, but cannot do at all, or cannot do so well, for themselves, in their separate and individual capacities."

"I... would continue (trade) where it is necessary, and discontinue it, where it is not. As instance: I would continue commerce so far as it is employed in bringing us coffee, and I would discontinue it so far as it is employed in bringing us cotton goods." This starkly illustrates Lincoln's dictatorial mentality. He will place his subjective impressions over the decisions of individual consumers. Lincoln proposed that he, rather than consumers, would determine which goods and services would exist. This is Lincoln as amateur Soviet-style central planner.

There is a myth that Lincoln's administration helped the development of capitalism, but his own comments reveal his anti-free trade and mercantilist statism.

"I was an old Henry-Clay-Tariff Whig. In old times I made more speeches on that subject than any other. I have not since changed my views." ~ Lincoln, in a letter to Edward Wallace, Oct. 11 1859

"If I do that, what would become of my revenue? I might as well shut up housekeeping at once!" ~ Lincoln, in response to the suggestion by the Virginian Commissioners to abandon the custom house of Fort Sumter. Housekeeping is a euphemism for federal spending, in otherwords, taxing consumers to subsidize special interests, or what we would call today, corporate welfare.

"But what am I to do in the meantime with those men at Montgomery [meaning the Confederate constitutional convention]? Am I to let them go on... [a]nd open Charleston, etc., as ports of entry, with their ten-percent tariff. What, then, would become of my tariff?" ~ Lincoln to Colonel John B. Baldwin, deputized by the Virginian Commissioners to determine whether Lincoln would use force, April 4, 1861

Above all else, Lincoln was a tax and spender, and loved the Union because it would allow him to tax the South to spend on "internal improvements" in the North.

On the Constitution:

"Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such purpose – and you allow him to make war at pleasure.... If, today, he should choose to say he thinks it necessary to invade Canada, to prevent the British from invading us, how could you stop him? You may say to him, 'I see no probability of the British invading us' but he will say to you 'be silent; I see it, if you don't.' The provision of the Constitution giving the war-making power to Congress, was dictated, as I understand it, by the following reasons. Kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the object. This, our Convention understood to be the most oppressive of all Kingly oppressions; and they resolved to so frame the Constitution that no one man should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon us. But your view destroys the whole matter, and places our President where kings have always stood." ~ Representative Abraham Lincoln, in a letter to his long-time law partner William H. Herndon, denouncing the trickery of President Polk in provoking the Mexican War of 1848. The claims of the current president in regards to the alleged threat posed by Iraq are a fulfilment of Lincoln's warning about presidential despotism, which he later had the leading hand in bringing about.

"The power confided in me, will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property, and places belonging to the government, and to collect the duties and imposts; but beyond what may be necessary for these objects, there will be no invasion – no using of force against, or among the people anywhere.... You can have no conflict, without being yourselves the aggressors." ~ Lincoln's ultimatum to the South: basically it states, pay tribute to the North or failure to do so will be interpreted as a declaration of war, by the South, against the North.

"A union is made up of willing states." ~ Wendell Philips, Abolitionist, in a speech in New York, 1860.

"While the people retain their virtue, and vigilance, no administration, by any extreme of wickedness or folly, can very seriously injure the government, in the short space of four years." ~ Lincoln's first Inaugural Address, March 4, 1861.

"You will take possession by military force, of the printing establishments of the New York World and Journal of Commerce... and prohibit any further publication thereof... you are therefore commanded forthwith to arrest and imprison in any fort or military prison in your command, the editors, proprietors and publishers of the aforesaid newspapers... and you will hold the persons so arrested in close custody until they can be brought to trial before a military commission." ~ Order from Lincoln to General John A. Dix, May 18, 1864, two examples among many of newspapers shut down on Lincoln's fiat, and the establishment of his military dictatorship over the First Amendment.

"And I do further proclaim, declare, and make known that whenever, in any of the States of Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, and North Carolina, a number of persons, not less than one-tenth in number of the votes cast in such State at the Presidential election of the year A.D. 1860, each having taken oath [of loyalty to Lincoln and the Union] aforesaid, and not having since violated it, and being a qualified voter by the election law of the State existing immediately before the so-called act of secession, and excluding all others, shall reestablish a State government which shall be republican and in nowise contravening said oath, such shall be recognized as the true government of the State, and the State shall receive thereunder the benefits of the constitutional provision which declares that "the United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a republican form of government and shall protect each of them against invasion, and, on application of the legislature, or the EXECUTIVE (when the legislature can not be convened), against domestic violence." ~ Lincoln's Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction, December 8 1863, demonstrating Lincoln's unique definition of democracy, which, generally believed, is rule by 51% or better. A republican-form of government is generally believed to mean self-government, rather than the imperial model of rule by conquerors and their native collaborators. The emphasis on the State executive -the military governors – is particularly notable, as the 10% Union Loyalists provided the basis of Lincoln's military dictatorship in the conquered States.

"Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." ~ Declaration of Independence, 1776.

Through thought and deed, Lincoln shows that his rhetoric at Gettysburg was one hypocrisy after another from the mouth of the chief destroyer of self-government and constitutional government throughout the States.

On Secession:

"...they [the South] commenced by an insidious debauching of the public mind. They invented an ingenious sophism which, if conceded, was followed by perfectly logical steps, through all the incidents, to the complete destruction of the Union. The sophism itself is that any State of the Union may consistently with the national Constitution, and therefore lawfully and peacefully, withdraw from the Union without the consent of the Union or of any other State." ~ Lincoln, in his Special Message to Congress July 4 1861.

"Any people, anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most sacred right, a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people, that can, may revolutionize, and make their own of so much of the territory as they inhabit. More than this, a majority of any portion of such people may revolutionize, putting down a minority, intermingled with, or near about them, who may oppose their movements." ~ Lincoln January 12 1848, expressing the near-universally held Jeffersonian principle, before Lincoln unilaterally destroyed it, that no state could claim its inhabitants as its property.

"[I am] determined . . . to sever ourselves from the union we so much value rather than give up the rights of self-government . . . in which alone we see liberty, safety and happiness." ~ Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence and a man whom Lincoln himself considered "the most distinguished politician in our history."

"... a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, & as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical ... a medicine necessary for the sound health of government." ~ Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to James Madison, January 30, 1787

"If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union... let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it." ~ Thomas Jefferson, first Inaugural Address, 1801.

"If any state in the Union will declare that it prefers separation... to a continuance in union... I have no hesitation in saying, 'let us separate.'" ~ Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to W. Crawford, June 20, 1816

"To coerce the States is one of the maddest projects that was ever devised.... Can any reasonable man be well disposed toward a government which makes war and carnage the only means of supporting itself – a government that can only exist by the sword? ~ Alexander Hamilton, during the Constitutional Convention.

"The Union, in any event, won't be dissolved. We don't want to dissolve it, and if you attempt it, we won't let you. With the purse and sword, the army and navy and treasury in our hands and at our command, you couldn't do it.... We do not want to dissolve the Union; you shall not." ~ Lincoln, in a campaign speech in Galena, Illinois, Aug. 1 1856.

"... the right of a state to secede from the Union [has been] settled forever by the highest tribunal – arms – that man can resort to." ~ Ulysses S. Grant's theory of constitutional law. Organized murder replaces reason.

"A policy of violent opposition to secession is a policy of forced association. As with all forms of forced association, the stronger party will tend to exploit the weaker. Such is the case with the master-slave relationship. Such is the case when a state is forced to remain in the Union against its will. Both forms of forced association are immoral." ~ James Ostrowski 'Was the Union Army's Invasion of the Confederate States a Lawful Act? An Analysis of President Lincoln's Legal Arguments Against Secession' in Secession, State, and Liberty.

"Even though unionists have placed great stock in the Preamble, their recitations rarely extend past the first 15 words... the presence in the Preamble of the phrase, "We, the People of the United States" was an accident! It originally read: 'That the people of the States of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia do ordain, declare and establish the following constitution for the government of ourselves and our posterity.' It was amended, not for the purpose of submitting the constitution to the people in the aggregate, but because the convention could not tell, in advance, which States would ratify it." James Ostrowski 'Was the Union Army's Invasion of the Confederate States a Lawful Act? An Analysis of President Lincoln's Legal Arguments Against Secession' in Secession, State, and Liberty.

Lincoln's view of the Union as irrevocable and inescapable is both ahistorical and immoral. His notion that the Union created the States is as absurd as someone claiming a child fathered its own parents. The federal government is not a partner in a marriage, but rather the offspring of a marriage between the sovereign States.

On Slavery:

"... when they [slaveowners] remind us of their constitutional rights, I acknowledge them, not grudgingly but fully and fairly; and I would give them any legislation for the claiming of their fugitives." ~ Lincoln, speaking in support of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.

"...in nearly all the published speeches of him who now addresses you... I do but quote from one of those speeches when I declare that 'I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the states where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.' "

"I have no objection to its being made express and irrevocable." ~ Lincoln, speaking in regards to slavery and in support of a proposed Thirteenth Amendment to explicitly guarantee slavery.

"Servile labor disappeared because it could not stand the competition of free labor; its profitability sealed [slavery's] doom in the market economy." ~ Ludwig von Mises, explaining why an institution that had been a universal feature of all societies throughout recorded history could finally be abolished by laissez-faire economic liberties, which unfortunately, could not prevent politicians from stealing the credit for it.

As his own words demonstrate, Lincoln was willing to accomodate slavery. As was shown in the taxation section above, it was only the tariff that he would never compromise on.

On Blacks:

"The whole nation is interested that the best use shall be made of these territories. We want them for the homes of free white people." ~ Lincoln, on whether blacks – slave or free – should be allowed in the new territories in the west, October 16, 1854.

"I, as well as Judge Douglas, am in favor of the race to which I belong having the superior position. I have never said anything to the contrary." ~ Lincoln, Aug. 21, 1858, in remarks stating his belief that blacks were naturally inferior to whites, which was a nearly universal belief on the part of whites in both the North and South long before and long after the Civil War.

"They had better be set to digging their subsistence out of the ground." ~ Lincoln in a War Department memo, April 16, 1863

"Send them to Liberia, to their own native land." ~ Lincoln, speaking in favor of ethnic cleansing all blacks from the United States.

"I cannot make it better known than it already is, that I favor colonization." ~ Lincoln, in a message to Congress, December 1, 1862, supporting deportation of all blacks from America.

"President Lincoln may colonize himself if he choose, but it is an impertinent act, on his part, to propose the getting rid of those who are as good as himself." ~ America's preeminent immediate Abolitionist and advocate of free trade, William Lloyd Garrison.

"[Lincoln] had not a drop of anti-slavery blood in his veins." ~ William Lloyd Garrison.

The comments shown here illustrate that abolition was not what motivated Lincoln. The coldness in Lincoln's remarks, the lack of thought and preparation about the process of emancipation, and how the freedman would cope without the necessary skills is readily apparent.

On the Emancipation Proclamation:

"What good would a proclamation of emancipation from me do, especially as we are now situated? I do not want to issue a document that the whole world will see must necessarily be inoperative, like the Pope's bull against the comet! Would my word free the slaves, when I cannot even enforce the Constitution in the rebel States?... Now, then, tell me, if you please, what possible result of good would follow the issuing of such a proclamation as you desire? Understand, I raise no objections against it on legal or constitutional grounds; for, as commander-in-chief of the army and navy, in time of war I suppose I have a right to take any measure which may best subdue the enemy; nor do I urge objections of a moral nature, in view of possible consequences of insurrection and massacre at the South. I view this matter as a practical war measure, to be decided on according to the advantages or disadvantages it may offer to the suppression of the rebellion.... I will also concede that emancipation would help us in Europe, and convince them that we are incited by something more than ambition.... Still, some additional strength would be added in that way to the war, and then, unquestionably, it would weaken the rebels by drawing off their laborers, which is of great importance; but I am not so sure we could do much with the blacks.... I think you should admit that we already have an important principle to rally and unite the people, in the fact that constitutional government is at stake. This is a fundamental idea." ~ Lincoln's reply to a Committee from Religious Denominations of Chicago asking for a Proclamation of Emancipation, on Sept. 13, 1862. Less than four months later he would decree what he would term a "war measure," the Emancipation Proclamation, on Jan 1, 1863.

"It had got to be midsummer, 1862. Things had gone on from bad to worse, until I felt that we had reached the end of our rope on the plan of operations we had been pursuing; that we had about played our last card, and must change our tactics, or lose the game. I now determined upon the adoption of the emancipation policy; and without consultation with, or the knowledge of, the Cabinet, I prepared the original draft of the proclamation, and, after much anxious thought, called a Cabinet meeting upon the subject. This was the last of July or the first part of the month of August, 1862. [The exact date was July 22, 1862.]" ~ Lincoln, to the artist F.B. Carpenter, Feb. 6 1864. Almost two months before his meeting with the Chicago Committee. Ol' Honest Abe, indeed.

"The original proclamation has no... legal justification, except as a military measure." ~ Lincoln, in a letter to Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase.

On the War:

"My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union." ~ Letter to Horace Greeley, Editor of the New York Tribune, August 22 1862. This more than anything else demonstrates that Lincoln's centralist superstitions derived from Daniel Webster and Joseph Story about "the Union," rather than the immorality of slavery, were his motivations in plotting war. This letter also contradicts Lincoln's sentiment expressed in his first inaugural address, that he had neither the "lawful right," or the "inclination" to abolish slavery.

"If the lord would only give the United States [i.e., the North] an excuse for a war with England, France, or Spain, that would be the best means of reestablishing internal peace [by uniting Northern opinion]." ~ Secretary of State William H. Seward, April 1, 1861

"The Sumter expedition failed of its ostensible object, but it brought about the Southern attack on that fort. The first gun fired there effectively cleared the air... and placed Lincoln at the head of the united people." ~ Secretary of State Seward's opinion about Ft. Sumter.

"You and I both anticipated that the cause of the country would be advanced by making the attempt to provision Fort Sumter, even if it should fail, and it is no small consolation now to feel that our anticipation is justified by the result." ~ Lincoln to Gustavus Fox, in a letter dated May 1 1865. The phrase 'even if it should fail' is a tip off to Lincoln's real motivations.

"President Lincoln in deciding the Sumter question had adopted a simple but effective policy. To use his own words, he determined to "send bread to Anderson"; if the rebels fired on that, they would not be able to convince the world that he had begun the civil war." ~ The account of John G. Nicolay and John Hay, Lincoln's trusted confidential secretaries.

"He told me that the very first thing placed in his hands after his inauguration was a letter from Major Anderson announcing the impossibility of defending or relieving Sumter.... He himself conceived the idea, and proposed sending supplies, without an attempt to reinforce giving notice of the fact to Governor Pickens of S.C. The plan succeeded. They attacked Sumter – it fell, and thus, did more service than it otherwise could." ~ Senator Orville H. Browning, Lincoln's close friend for twenty years, and staunch supporter of Lincoln's dictatorship, in his daily diary that Lincoln didn't know he kept, July 3, 1861.

If the plan Lincoln refered to was to resupply Ft. Sumter, then that plan failed, since the ships never approached the fort. But if the plan was to get the South to fire first, then that plan succeeded. Lincoln's own words reveal his deceit, contrary to his claim the next day in his message to Congress to have proceeded "without guile and with pure purpose" in pursuit of a peaceful solution to the crisis.

Northern Editorials Against Him:

"...the mask has been thrown off, and it is apparent that the people of the principle seceding States are now for commercial independence." ~ Boston Transcript newspaper, March 18 1861.

"Mr. Lincoln saw an opportunity to inaugurate civil war without appearing in the character of an aggressor." ~ Providence Daily Post, April 13 1861

"We are to have civil war, if at all, because Abraham Lincoln loves a [the Republican] party better than he loves his country.... [He] clings to his party creed, and allows the nation to drift into the whirlpool of destruction." ~ The Providence Daily Post, April 13 1861

"If this result follows – and follow civil war it must – the memory of ABRAHAM LINCOLN and his infatuated advisors will only be preserved with that of other destroyers to the scorned and execrated.... And if the historian who preserves the record of his fatal administration needs any motto descriptive of the president who destroyed the institutions which he swore to protect, it will probably be some such as this: Here is the record of one who feared more to have it said that he deserted his party than that he ruined the country, who had a greater solicitude for his consistency as a partisan than for his wisdom as a Statesman or his courage and virtue as a patriot, and who destroyed by his weakness the fairest experiment of man in self-government that the world ever witnessed." ~ The American Standard, New Jersey, April 12, 1861, the very day the South moved to reclaim Fort Sumter.

"The affair at Fort Sumter, it seems to us, has been planned as a means by which the war feeling at the North should be intensified, and the administration thus receive popular support for its policy.... If the armament which lay outside the harbor, while the fort was being battered to pieces [the US ship The Harriet Lane, and seven other reinforcement ships], had been designed for the relief of Major Anderson, it certainly would have made a show of fulfilling its mission. But it seems plain to us that no such design was had. The administration, virtually, to use a homely illustration, stood at Sumter like a boy with a chip on his shoulder, daring his antagonist to knock it off. The Carolinians have knocked off the chip. War is inaugurated, and the design of the administration accomplished." ~ The Buffalo Daily Courier, April 16, 1861.

"We have no doubt, and all the circumstances prove, that it was a cunningly devised scheme, contrived with all due attention to scenic display and intended to arouse, and, if possible, exasperate the northern people against the South.... We venture to say a more gigantic conspiracy against the principles of human liberty and freedom has never been concocted. Who but a fiend could have thought of sacrificing the gallant Major Anderson and his little band in order to carry out a political game? Yet there he was compelled to stand for thirty-six hours amid a torrent of fire and shell, while the fleet sent to assist him, coolly looked at his flag of distress and moved not to his assistance! Why did they not? Perhaps the archives in Washington will yet tell the tale of this strange proceeding.... Pause then, and consider before you endorse these mad men who are now, under pretense of preserving the Union, doing the very thing that must forever divide it. ~ The New York Evening Day-Book, April 17, 1861.

Foreign Editorials Against Him:

"Democracy broke down, not when the Union ceased to be agreeable to all its constituent States, but when it was upheld, like any other Empire, by force of arms." ~ The London Times.

"With what pretence of fairness, it is said, can you Americans object to the secession of the Southern States when your nation was founded on secession from the British Empire?" ~ Cornhill Magazine (London) 1861.

"The struggle of today is on the one side for empire and on the other for independence." ~ Wigan Examiner (UK) May, 1861.

"The Southerners are admired for everything but their slavery and that their independence may be speedily acknowledged by France and England is, we are convinced, the strong desire of the vast majority, not only in England but throughout Europe." ~ Liverpool Daily Post, 11 March 1862.

Is that why Lincoln supported an amendment to PROTECT southern slavery and why it was also a platform item for the Republicans in 1860?

I don't know why Lincoln supported an amendment to protect southern slavery. I suspect he was seeking any peaceful method possible to save the Union and satisfy the slave owners. Where do you find it as a platform item?

1860 Republican Party Platform

"Resolved, That we, the delegated representatives of the Republican electors of the United States, in convention assembled, in discharge of the duty we owe to our constituent and our country, unite in the following declarations:

1. That the history of the nation during the last four years has fully established the propriety and necessity of the organization and perpetuation of the republican party, and that the causes which called it into existence are permanent in their nature, and now more than ever before demand its peaceful and constitutional triumph.

2. That the maintenance of the principles promulgated in the Declaration of Independence and embodied in the Federal Constitution, "That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed," is essential to the preservation of our Republican institutions; and that the Federal Constitution, the rights of the states, and the Union of the states, must and shall be preserved.

3. That to the Union of the States this nation owes its unprecedented increase in population; its surprising development of material resources; its rapid augmentation of wealth; its happiness at home and its honor abroad; and we hold in abhorrence all schemes for disunion, come from whatever source they may; and we congratulate the country that no republican member of congress has uttered or countenanced the threats of disunion so often made by democratic members, without rebuke and with applause from their political associates; and we denounce those threats of disunion, in case of a popular overthrow of their ascendancy, as denying the vital principles of a free government, and as an avowal of contemplated treason, which it is the imperative duty of an indignant people sternly to rebuke and forever silence.

4. That the maintenance inviolate of the rights of the states, and especially the right of each state, to order and control its own domestic institutions according to its own judgment exclusively, is essential to that balance of power on which the perfection and endurance of our political fabric depends, and we denounce the lawless invasion by armed force of the soil of any state or territory, no matter under what pretext, as among the gravest of crimes.

5. That the present Democratic Administration has far exceeded our worst apprehension in its measureless subserviency to the exactions of a sectional interest, as is especially evident in its desperate exertions to force the infamous Lecompton constitution upon the protesting people of Kansas - in construing the personal relation between master and servant to involve an unqualified property in persons - in its attempted enforcement everywhere, on land and sea, through the intervention of congress and of the federal courts, of the extreme pretensions of a purely local interest, and in its general and unvarying abuse of the power entrusted to it by a confiding people.

6. That the people justly view with alarm the reckless extravagance which pervades every department of the Federal Government; that a return to rigid economy and accountability is indispensable to arrest the systematic plunder of the public treasury by favored partisans; while the recent startling developments of frauds and corruptions at the federal metropolis, show that an entire change of Administration is imperatively demanded.

7. That the new dogma that the Constitution of its own force carries slavery into any or all of the territories of the United States, is a dangerous political heresy, at variance with the explicit provisions of that instrument itself, with cotemporaneous exposition, and with legislative and judicial precedent, is revolutionary in its tendency and subversive of the peace and harmony of the country.

8. That the normal condition of all the territory of the United States is that of freedom; that as our republican fathers, when they had abolished slavery in all our national territory, ordained that no "person should be deprived of life, liberty or property, without due process of law," it becomes our duty, by legislation, whenever such legislation is necessary, to maintain this provision of the constitution against all attempts to violate it; and we deny the authority of congress, of a territorial legislature, or of any individuals, to give legal existence to slavery in any territory of the United States.

9. That we brand the recent re-opening of the African Slave Trade, under the cover of our national flag, aided by perversions of judicial power, as a crime against humanity, and a burning shame to our country and age, and we call upon congress to take prompt and efficient measures for the total and final suppression of that execrable traffic.

10. That in the recent vetoes by the federal governors of the acts of the Legislatures of Kansas and Nebraska, prohibiting slavery in those territories, we find a practical illustration of the boasted democratic principle of non- intervention and popular sovereignty, embodied in the Kansas-Nebraska bill, and a demonstration of the deception and fraud involved therein.

11. That Kansas should of right be immediately admitted as a state, under the constitution recently formed and adopted by her people, and accepted by the House of Representatives.

12. That while providing revenue for the support of the general government by duties upon imports, sound policy requires such an adjustment of these imposts as to encourage the development of the industrial interests of the whole country, and we commend that policy of national exchanges which secures to the workingmen liberal wages, to agriculture remunerating prices, to mechanics and manufacturers an adequate reward for their skill, labor and enterprise, and to the nation commercial prosperity and independence.

13. That we protest against any sale or alienation to others of the public lands held by actual settlers, and against any view of the free homestead policy which regards the settlers as paupers or suppliants for public bounty, and we demand the passage by congress of the complete and satisfactory homestead measure which has already passed the house.

14. That the Republican Party is opposed to any change in our naturalization laws, or any state legislation by which the rights of citizenship hitherto accorded by emigrants from foreign lands shall be abridged or impaired; and in favor of giving a full and efficient protection to the rights of all classes of citizens, whether native or naturalized, both at home and abroad.

15. That appropriation by Congress for river and Harbor improvements of a National character, required for the accommodation and security of an existing commerce, are authorized by the constitution and justified by the obligation of Government to protect the lives and property of its citizens.

16. That a railroad to the Pacific ocean is imperatively demanded by the interests of the whole country; that the Federal Government ought to render immediate and efficient aid in its construction; and that, as preliminary thereto, a daily overland mail should be promptly established.

17. Finally, having thus set forth our distinctive principles and views, we invite the coöperation of all citizens, however differing on other questions who substantially agree with us in their affirmance and support.

Supplementary Resolution. Resolved, That we deeply sympathize with those men who have been driven, some from their native States and others from the States of their adoption, and are now exiled from their homes on account of their opinions; and we hold the Democratic Party responsible for this gross violation of that clause of the Constitution which declares that the citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States."

I don't know why Lincoln supported an amendment to protect southern slavery. I suspect he was seeking any peaceful method possible to save the Union and satisfy the slave owners. Where do you find it as a platform item?

Lincoln never fought the civil war for slavery, it was about his tariff's and the desire to collect higher tariffs from southern ports. He actually said if he let them seceed "what will become of my tariff?"

Here's Abe in his own words:

"But what am I to do in the meantime with those men at Montgomery [meaning the Confederate constitutional convention]? Am I to let them go on... [a]nd open Charleston, etc., as ports of entry, with their ten-percent tariff. What, then, would become of my tariff?" ~ Lincoln to Colonel John B. Baldwin, deputized by the Virginian Commissioners to determine whether Lincoln would use force, April 4, 1861

The Southern Confederacy fought the war to nationalize slavery. The North fought the war to defend the principles set forth by the founders of the U.S. Constitution.

People don't understand what principles are. Lincoln was a principled man. Lincoln defended the Union against Southern invasion because he swore an oath on the Bible to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States of America. He was going to have to answer to God for going against his word.

In his First Inaugural Address he made his stance vividly clear. Don't shoot at us and we will not invade you. We'll work this crisis out peacefully.

In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The Government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the Government, while I shall have the most solemn one to "preserve, protect, and defend it."

The Southern leaders knew full well that they were starting the war. They intended to invade Washington D.C. within three weeks after firing upon Fort Sumter.

"Jefferson Davis planned to be living in the White House by May 1, according to the plans of his wife, Varina. On April 17th, New York insurance executive William Holdredge wrote Secretary of State William H. Seward in exasperation, informing him that the "wife of the Rebel President Davis has had the imprudence to send cards to her lady acquaintances at the Saint Nicholas" - a favorite New York hotel for visiting Southerners - "inviting them to attend her reception in the White House at Washington on the first of May."

"On April 12, 1861 only hours after Confederate guns opened fire on Fort Sumter in the Charleston harbor, Confederate Secretary of War Leroy P. Walker appeared before a jubilant crowd in Montgomery, Alabama. "No man can tell when the war this day commenced will end," Walker thundered from the balcony of the Exchange Hotel, at the heart of the Confederate capital, "but I will prophesy that the flag which now floats the breeze here will float over the dome of the old capital at Washington before the first of May."

Which is the best system? It's probably safe to say that the public/private monopoly we have now, run by debt dealers, is not the best. Of course a purely public central bank would be just as susceptible to inflating the currency as any system. Competeing currencies, with no legislated monpolies is probably best.

I don't think it had anything to do with Marx. Lincoln started advocating for the National bank in 1832 after Henry Clay gave his three day speech in congress on the "American System."

The North seceeded because of the high tariffs Lincoln and the North was imposing or wanted to impose. They did so PEACEFULLY and in some states held referendums and conventions. How many times do you need to be told that before you believe it? Just because they mentioned slavery in their constitution, something Lincoln wanted to put in the U.S constitution to address ONE of their grievances does not mean they seceeded over it, which they felt, as Jefferson and others was their right as the Union was voluntary.

"My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union." ~ Letter to Horace Greeley, Editor of the New York Tribune, August 22 1862. This more than anything else demonstrates that Lincoln's centralist superstitions derived from Daniel Webster and Joseph Story about "the Union," rather than the immorality of slavery, were his motivations in plotting war. This letter also contradicts Lincoln's sentiment expressed in his first inaugural address, that he had neither the "lawful right," or the "inclination" to abolish slavery.

And if Lincoln was so principled as you claim, why did he DEFEND secession then OPPOSE it?

Lincoln DEFENDING secession:

"Any people, anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most sacred right, a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people, that can, may revolutionize, and make their own of so much of the territory as they inhabit. More than this, a majority of any portion of such people may revolutionize, putting down a minority, intermingled with, or near about them, who may oppose their movements." ~ Lincoln January 12 1848, expressing the near-universally held Jeffersonian principle, before Lincoln unilaterally destroyed it, that no state could claim its inhabitants as its property.

Lincoln OPPOSING secession:

"...they [the South] commenced by an insidious debauching of the public mind. They invented an ingenious sophism which, if conceded, was followed by perfectly logical steps, through all the incidents, to the complete destruction of the Union. The sophism itself is that any State of the Union may consistently with the national Constitution, and therefore lawfully and peacefully, withdraw from the Union without the consent of the Union or of any other State." ~ Lincoln, in his Special Message to Congress July 4 1861.

"If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union... let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it." ~ Thomas Jefferson, first Inaugural Address, 1801.

"If any state in the Union will declare that it prefers separation... to a continuance in union... I have no hesitation in saying, 'let us separate.'" ~ Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to W. Crawford, June 20, 1816

Lincoln called Thomas Jefferson "the most distinguished politician in our history."

So therefore we have a founding father, THE founding father and principal author of the Declaration of Independence, explicitly supporting SECESSION. So no, Lincoln wasn't defending the principles of the founders he was OPPOSING them.

The North seceeded because of the high tariffs Lincoln and the North was imposing or wanted to impose. They did so PEACEFULLY and in some states held referendums and conventions. How many times do you need to be told that before you believe it? Just because they mentioned slavery in their constitution, something Lincoln wanted to put in the U.S constitution to address ONE of their grievances does not mean they seceeded over it, which they felt, as Jefferson and others was their right as the Union was voluntary.

"My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union." ~ Letter to Horace Greeley, Editor of the New York Tribune, August 22 1862. This more than anything else demonstrates that Lincoln's centralist superstitions derived from Daniel Webster and Joseph Story about "the Union," rather than the immorality of slavery, were his motivations in plotting war. This letter also contradicts Lincoln's sentiment expressed in his first inaugural address, that he had neither the "lawful right," or the "inclination" to abolish slavery.

So no, it wasn't as you frequently claim "about slavery"

For the Southern Confederacy it was definitely about slavery. Read what the Southern states declare in their own secession statements. They claim to secede from the Union in order to "preserve the blessings of African slavery." Lincoln believed he only had the Constitutional authority to end slavery in Washington D.C. and he did free the slaves in D.C. in 1862. These are their words... not mine.

SouthCarolina,

[A]n increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding [i.e., northern] states to the institution of slavery has led to a disregard of their obligations. . . . [T]hey have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery. . . . They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes [through the Underground Railroad].

Mississippi,

Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery – the greatest material interest of the world. . . . [A] blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin.

Alabama,

. . . the election of Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin to the offices of President and Vice-President of the United States of America by a sectional party [the Republicans], avowedly hostile to the domestic institutions [slavery] and to the peace and security of the people of the State of Alabama . .

Georgia,

A brief history of the rise, progress, and policy of anti-slavery and the political organization into whose hands the administration of the federal government has been committed [i.e., the Republican Party] will fully justify the pronounced verdict of the people of Georgia [in favor of secession]. The party of Lincoln, called the Republican Party under its present name and organization, is of recent origin. It is admitted to be an anti-slavery party. . . . The prohibition of slavery in the territories, hostility to it everywhere, the equality of the black and white races, disregard of all constitutional guarantees in its favor, were boldly proclaimed by its [Republican] leaders and applauded by its followers. . . . [T]he abolitionists and their allies in the northern states have been engaged in constant efforts to subvert our institutions [i.e., slavery].

Louisiana,

Louisiana looks to the formation of a Southern Confederacy to preserve the blessings of African slavery. . . . Louisiana and Texas have the same language, laws, and institutions. . . . and they are both so deeply interested in African slavery that it may be said to be absolutely necessary to their existence and is the keystone to the arch of their prosperity. . . . The people of Louisiana would consider it a most fatal blow to African slavery if Texas either did not secede or, having seceded, should not join her destinies to theirs in a Southern Confederacy.

Texas,

[Texas] was received as a commonwealth, holding, maintaining, and protecting the institution known as Negro slavery – the servitude of the African to the white race within [Texas] – a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race and which her people intended should exist in all future time.

Virginia,

On April 17, 1861, Virginia became the eighth state to secede. It, too, acknowledged that the “oppression of the southern slave-holding states” (among which it numbered itself) had motivated its decision.

Arkansas,

No concessions would now satisfy (and none ought now to satisfy) the South but such as would amount to a surrender of the distinctive principles by which the Republican Party coheres [exists], because none other or less would give the South peace and security. That Party would have to agree that in the view of the Constitution, slaves are property – that slavery might exist and should be legalized and protected in territory hereafter to be acquired to the southwest [e.g., New Mexico, Arizona, etc.], and that Negroes and mulattoes cannot be citizens of the United States nor vote at general elections in the states. . . . For that Party to make these concessions would simply be to commit suicide and therefore it is idle to expect from the North – so long as it [the Republican Party] rules there – a single concession of any value.

North Carolina and Tennessee,

North Carolina and Tennessee became the tenth and eleventh states to secede, thus finishing the formation of the new nation that titled itself the Slave-Holding Confederate States of America. Southern secession documents indisputably affirm that the South’s desire to preserve slavery was the driving force in its secession and thus a primary cause of the Civil War.

On Saturday morning, October 25, 1851, Horace Greeley’s New York Tribune , entrenched after a decade of existence as America’s leading Whig daily, appeared with twelve pages rather than its usual eight. The occasion was too noteworthy to be passed over without comment by the paper itself. So a special editorial was written—probably by Greeley’s young managing editor, the brisk, golden-whiskered Charles A. Dana—to point it out.

Besides a “press of advertisements.” the editorial ran, this morning’s enlarged paper contained “articles from some foreign contributors that are especially worthy of attention.” Among these were “a letter from Madame Belgioioso, upon the daily and domestic life of the Turks, and another upon Germany by one of the clearest and most vigorous writers that country has produced—no matter what may be the judgment of the critical upon his public opinions in the sphere of political and social philosophy.”

Turning the pages to see who this most clear and vigorous German might be, readers ... reached a long article entitled “Revolution and Counter-Revolution,” over the by-line, Karl Marx.

“The first act of the revolutionary drama on the Continent of Europe has closed,” it began upon a somber organ tone; ”“The ‘powers that were’ before the hurricane of 1848, are again the ‘powers that be.’ ” But, contributor Marx went on, swelling to his theme, the second act of the movement was soon to come, and the interval before the storm was a good time to study the “general social state … of the convulsed nations” that led inevitably to such upheavals.

He went on to speak of “bourgeoisie” and “proletariat”—strange new words to a readership absorbed at the moment with the Whig state convention, the late gale off Nova Scotia and with editor Greeley’s strictures against Tammany and Locofocoism. “The man goes deep—very deep for me,” remarked one of Greeley’s closest friends, editor Beman Brockway of upstate Watertown, New York. “Who is he?”

Karl Marx, a native of the Rhineland, had been for a short time the editor ol a leftist agitational newspaper in Cologne until the Prussian police closed it down and drove him out. At thirty, exiled in Paris, he had composed as his own extremist contribution to the uprisings of 1848 an obscure tract called the Communist Manifesto . At least at this moment it was still obscure, having been overtaken by events and forgotten in the general tide of reaction that followed the surge of 1848 abroad. Thrown out of France in turn as a subversive character, he had settled in London, tried unsuccessfully to launch another left-wing journal there, spent the last of his small savings, and now was on his uppers with his wife and small children in a two-room hovel in Soho, desperately in need of work.

The following week Karl Marx was in the Tribune again, continuing his study of the making of revolutions. And again the week after that. “It may perhaps give you pleasure to know,” managing editor Dana wrote him as his series of pieces on the late events in Germany went on, “that they are read with satisfaction by a considerable number of persons and are widely reproduced.” Whatever his views might be, evidently the man could write. Next he branched out and wrote for Greeley and Dana on current political developments in England, France, Spain, the Middle East, the Orient—the whole world, in fact, as seen from his Soho garret. News reports, foreign press summaries, polemics, and prophecies poured from his desk in a continuous, intermixed flow, sometimes weekly, often twice-weekly, to catch the next fast packet to New York and so to earn from Greeley five dollars per installment.

This singular collaboration continued for over ten years. During this period Europe’s extremest radical, proscribed by the Prussian police and watched over by its agents abroad as a potential assassin of kings, sent in well over 500 separate contributions to the great New York family newspaper dedicated to the support of Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, temperance, dietary reform, Going West, and, ultimately, Abraham Lincoln. Even at his low rate of pay—so low that his revolutionary friend and patron, Friedrich Engels, agreed with him that it was “the lousiest petty-bourgeois cheating”—what Marx earned from the Tribune during that decade constituted his chief means of support, apart from handouts from Engels. The organ of respectable American Whigs and of their successors, the new Republican party, sustained Karl Marx over the years when he was mapping out his crowning tract of overthrow, Das Kapital .

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Ah Jimminy Crickets! YAPCWT. (Yet another pointless civil war thread). It's pointless because each side is so freaking hell bent on proving their side "right" that few, if any, are willing to see that both sides were wrong. As an African American I'm tickled pink that my forebears where able to chose to leave the plantation and sell their labor to whoever they wished, start their own businesses and hire blacks and whites, or even leave the U.S. if that was their desire. (I LOL when some in this debate point to Lincoln offering to pay those who wished to leave as some kind of negative thing and mischarecterize that as "deportation"). On the flip side, Sherman did commit war crimes marching through Georgia and the whole thing could have been settled without bloodshed if there had been cooler heads on one side or the other. (South Carolina stood down a bellicose Andrew Jackson by themselves.) I also laugh at the "My forefathers weren't fighting for slavery as they didn't own slaves" argument. Some of those forefathers were forced to fight because of a draft. Some aspired to be rich enough to be slaver owners someday. Some just got pissed when they saw people like Sherman burning up everything. (19th century version of "blowback"). I doubt your average illiterate cannon fodder southerner understood or cared about the tariff system. And I doubt your average illiterate cannon fodder yankee understood or cared about tariffs as well, and I bet most of them didn't give a flip about what happened to blacks in the south. Some were drafted. Some were pissed when they saw southern troops invade the north. (It's irrelevant as to who the real aggressor was because in times of war the media generally rallies around the government and paints the other side as the bad guy).

The truth is, the power elites in both regions didn't give a flip about the poor whites or blacks who went off to fight their war. And poor whites ultimately benefited from the south losing the civil war. Prior to the war some of them were treated less than dirt and even worse than black slaves. You want a good laugh? Read about the trial of Negro Will. The link I gave doesn't give it full justice. Will was a slave who had invented a new ho. (No jokes please) His white overseer wanted to force Will to let another slave use the ho. (Again, no jokes). Will got mad and broke it in half. The angry overseer went after Will. A fight ensued and the overseer shot Will, but Will killed the overseer. Will won his case when the state court declared that even slaves have a right to self defense. Now here's the funny part. Will's master paid for his defense. Why do you think he did that? For the same reason that someone who owns a prize pit bull might pay to defend it from being put to sleep even if it seriously hurt or killed someone. Will was property and property costs money. Ironically years later Will was put to death....for killing another black slave. Property destroying "white trash" wasn't important. "White trash" didn't cost anything to replace.

After the war there was no more property so the status of poor whites improved at least a little bit. And after the war the south stopped stubbornly sticking to an agricultural model and instead industrialized. (The south's dearth of industry is really what caused it to lose the war.) Whites had the opportunity to become foremen of steel mills and textile factories. Yeah some southern planters had to adjust their way of life. Some took to the adjustment better than others. And nowadays you'll find as much support for protective tariffs in the south as you do in the north. Which brings me to the point of what could and should have happened. Someone, on either side, should have proposed this deal. Protective tariffs should have been raised for a limited amount of time and the entire proceeds should have been given to the south. During this period the money should have been used for compensated emancipation, to fund integration of the newly freed slaves into society, or their emigration if they so chose, and to provide funds for industrialization of the south. Once both sides achieved economic and industrial parity, those tariffs should have been abolished. And before someone says "Well why didn't Lincoln try that", he did try compensated emancipation, but not under the model I've proposed. Now we can live in the past and hash over how good or bad Abraham Lincoln or Jefferson Davis was, or we can consider alternative ways both sides could have reached a "win/win" and see if such a lesson can be applied to our modern political dynamic.

That out of the way, I leave you to your regularly scheduled Lincoln admires vs Lincoln haters slugfest.